Jalna (1927)/Chapter 13
Eden had not been sorry to see his little brother waiting at the roadside with daisies for Alayne. The meeting with Piers, the breakfast in his company at the Queen's, and the subsequent drive home had not been altogether satisfactory. Alayne had been tired and unusually quiet, Piers actually taciturn. Eden resented this taciturnity because he remembered having been very decent to Piers and Pheasant on the occasion of their humiliating return to Jalna. He had been the first, and the only one except Renny, to stand up for them. He regarded his brother's solid back and strong sunburned neck with growing irritation as the car sped along the lake shore road.
Alayne gazed out over the misty blue expanse of the lake with a feeling approaching sadness. This sea that was not a sea, this land that was not her land, this new brother with the unfriendly blue eyes and the sulky mouth, she must get used to them all. They were to be hers. Ruth—"amid the alien corn."
But she should not feel that they were alien. It was a lovely land. The language was her own. Even this new brother was probably only rather shy. She wished that Eden had told her more about his family. There were so many of them. She went over their names in her mind to prepare herself for the meeting. A tiny shudder of apprehension ran through her nerves. She put her hand on Eden's and gripped his fingers.
"Cheer up, old dear," he said. "We'll soon be there."
They had left the lake shore and were running smoothly over a curving road. A quaint old church, perched on a wooded knoll, rose before them. Then a diminutive shop, two children staring, Eden's voice saying, "There's young Wake, Piers!" And a little boy on the running board, pushing flowers into her hand.
"Welcome to Jalna," he said, in a sweet treble, "and I thought maybe you'd like these Michaelmas daisies. I've been waiting ever so long."
"Hop in," commanded Eden, opening the door.
He hopped in, and squeezed his slender body between theirs on the seat. Piers had not looked round. Now he started the car with a jerk.
Wakefield raised his eyes to Alayne's face and scrutinized her closely. "What eyelashes!" she thought. "What a darling!" His little body pressed against her seemed the most delightful and pathetic thing. Oh, she could love this little brother. And he was delicate, too. Not strong enough to go to school. She would play with him, help to teach him. They smiled at each other. She looked, across his head at Eden and formed the words "A darling" with smiling lips.
"How is every one at home?" asked Eden.
"Nicely, thank you," said Wakefield, cheerfully. "Granny has had a little cough, and Boney imitates her. Uncle Ernest's nose is rather pink from hay fever. Uncle Nick's gout is better. Meggie eats very little, but she is getting fatter. Piers took the first prize with his bull at the Durham show. It wore the blue ribbon all the way home. Finch came out fifty-second in his Greek exam. I can't think of any news about Pheasant and Rags and Mrs. Wragge except that they're there. I hope you like your flowers, Alayne. I should have got more, but I saw your car coming just as I was beginning to gather them."
"They are beautiful," said Alayne, holding them to her face, and Wakefield close to her side. "I am so very glad you came to meet me."
In truth she was very glad. It seemed easier to meet the family with the little boy by her side. Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, and she craned her neck eagerly to catch a first glimpse of the house as they passed between the stalwart spruces along the drive.
Jalna looked very mellow in the golden sunlight, draped in its mantle of reddening Virginia creeper and surrounded by freshly clipped lawns. One of Wake's rabbits was hopping about, and Renny's two clumber spaniels were stretched on the steps. A pear tree near the house had dropped its fruit in the grass, where it lay richly yellow, giving to the eyes of a town dweller an air of negligent well-being to the scene. Alayne thought that Jalna had something of the appearance of an old manorial farmhouse, set among its lawns and orchards. The spaniels lazily beat their plumed tails on the step, too indolent to rise.
"Renny's dogs," commented Eden, pushing one of them out of the way with his foot that Alayne might pass. "You'll have to get used to animals. You'll find them all over the place."
"That will not be hard. I have always wanted pets." She bent to stroke one of the silken heads.
Eden looked down at her curiously. How would she and his family get on, he wondered. Now that he had brought her home he realized suddenly that she was alien to his family. He had a disconcerting sensation of surprise at finding himself married. After all, he was not so elated as he had expected to be when Rags opened the door and smiled a self-conscious welcome.
Rags was always self-conscious when he wore his livery. It consisted of a shiny black suit with trousers very tight for him and a coat a size too large, a stiff white collar, and a greenish-black bow tie. His ash-blond hair was clipped with convict-like closeness, his pallid face showed a cut he had given himself when shaving. His air had something of the secretive smirk of an undertaker.
"Welcome 'ome, Mr. Eden," he said, sadly. "Welcome 'ome, sir."
"Thanks, Rags. Alayne, this is Wragge, our—" Eden hesitated, trying to decide how Mr. Wragge should be described, and continued, "our factotum."
"Welcome 'ome, Mrs. Whiteoak," said Rags, with his curiously deprecating yet impudent glance. It said to Eden silently but unmistakably: "Ow, you may fool the family, young man, but you can't fool me. You 'aven't married a heiress. And 'ow we're to put up with another young woman 'ere, Gawd only knows."
Alayne thanked him, and at the same moment the door of the living-room was opened and Meg Whiteoak appeared on the threshold. She threw her arms about Eden's neck and kissed him with passionate tenderness. Then she turned to Alayne, her lips, with their prettily curved corners, parted in a gentle smile.
"So this is Alayne. I hope you will like us all, my dear. We're so happy to have you."
Alayne found herself enfolded in a warm plump embrace. She thought it was no wonder the brothers adored their sister,—Eden had told her they did,—and she felt prepared to make a sister, a confidante, of her. How delightful! A real sister. She held tightly to Meg's hand as they went into the living-room where more of the family had assembled.
It was so warm that even the low flameless fire seemed too much; none of the windows were open. Slanting bars of sunlight penetrating between the slats of the inside shutters converged at one point, the chair where old Mrs. Whiteoak sat. Like fiery fingers they seemed to point her out as the most significant presence in the room. Yet she was indulging in one of her unpremeditated naps. Her head, topped by a large purple cap with pink rosettes, had sunk forward so that the only part of her face visible was her heavy jaw and row of too perfect under-teeth. She wore a voluminous tea-gown of purple velvet, and her shapely hands clasping the gold top of her ebony stick were heavy with rings worn for the occasion. A steady bubbling snore escaped her. The two elderly men came forward, Nicholas frowning because of the painful effort of rising, but enfolding Alayne's hand in a warm grasp. They greeted her in mellow whispers, Ernest excusing their mamma's momentary oblivion.
"She must have these little naps. They refresh her. Keep her going."
Wakefield, who stood gazing into his grandmother's face, remarked: "Yes. She winds herself up, rather like a clock, you know. You can hear her doing it, can't you? B-z-z-z-z—"
Meg smiled at Alayne. "He thinks of everything," she said. "His mind is never still."
"He ought to be more respectful in speaking of his grandmamma," rebuked Ernest. "Don't you think so, Alayne?"
Nicholas put his arm about the child. "She'd probably be highly amused by the comparison, and talk of nothing else for an hour." He turned with his sardonic smile to Alayne. "She's very bright, you know. She can drown us all out when she—"
"Begins to strike," put in Wake, carrying on the clock simile. Nicholas rumpled the boy's hair.
"We had better sit down," said Meg, "till she wakens and has a little talk with Alayne. Then I'll take you up to your room, my dear. You must be tired after the journey. And hungry, too. Well, we're going to have an early dinner."
"Chicken and plum tart! Chicken and plum tart!" exploded Wakefield, and old Mrs. Whiteoak stirred in her sleep.
Uncle Nicholas covered the child's face with his hand, and the family's gaze was fixed expectantly on the old lady. After a moment's contortion, however, her face resumed the calm of peaceful slumber; every one sat down, and conversation was carried on in hushed tones.
Alayne felt as though she were in a dream. The room, the furniture, the people were so different from those to which she was accustomed that their strangeness made even Eden seem suddenly remote. She wondered wistfully whether it would take her long to get used to them. Yet in looking at the faces about her she found that each had a distinctive attraction for her. Or perhaps it was fascination. Certainly there was nothing attractive about the grandmother unless it were the bizarre strength of her personality.
"I lived in London a good many years," mumbled Uncle Nicholas, "but I don't know much about New York. I visited it once in the nineties, but I suppose it has changed a lot since then."
"Yes, I think you would find it very changed. It is changing constantly."
Uncle Ernest whispered: "I sailed from there once for England. I just missed seeing a murder."
"Oh, Uncle Ernest, I wish you'd seen it!" exclaimed Wakefield, bouncing up and down on the padded arm of his sister's chair.
"Hush, Wake," said Meg, giving his thigh a little slap. "I'm very glad he didn't see it. It would have upset him terribly. Isn't it a pity you have so many murders there? And lynchings, and all?"
"They don't have lynchings in New York, Meggie," corrected Uncle Ernest.
"Oh, I forgot. It's Chicago, isn't it?"
Eden spoke for almost the first time. "Never met so many orderly people in my life as I met in New York."
"How nice," said Meg. "I do like order, but I find it so hard to keep, with servants' wages high, and so many boys about, and Granny requiring a good deal of waiting on."
The sound of her own name must have penetrated Mrs. Whiteoak's consciousness. She wobbled a moment as though she were about to fall, then righted herself and raised her still handsome, chiseled nose from its horizontal position and looked about. Her eyes, blurred by sleep, did not at once perceive Alayne.
"Dinner," she observed. "I want my dinner."
"Here are Eden and Alayne," said Ernest, bending over her.
"Better come over to her," suggested Nicholas.
"She will be so glad," said Meg.
Eden took Alayne's hand and led her to his grandmother. The old lady peered at them unseeingly for a moment; then her gaze brightened. She clutched Eden to her and gave him a loud, hearty kiss.
"Eden," she said. "Well, well, so you're back. Where's your bride?"
Eden put Alayne forward, and she was enfolded in an embrace of surprising strength. Sharp bristles scratched her cheek, and a kiss was planted on her mouth.
"Pretty thing," said Grandmother, holding her off to look at her. "You're a very pretty thing. I'm glad you've come. Where's Boney, now?" She released Alayne and looked around sharply for the parrot. At the sound of his name he flapped heavily from his ring perch to her shoulder. She stroked his bright plumage with her jeweled hand.
"Say 'Alayne,'" she adjured him. "Say 'Pretty Alayne.' Come, now, there's a darling boy!"
Boney, casting a malevolent look on Alayne with one topaz eye, for the other was tight shut, burst into a string of curses.
"Kutni! Kutni! Kutni!" he screamed. "Shaitan ke khatla! Kambakht!"
Grandmother thumped her stick loudly on the floor. "Silence!" she thundered. "I won't have it. Stop him, Nick. Stop him!"
"He'll bite me," objected Nicholas.
"I don't care if he does. Stop him!"
"Stop him yourself, Mamma."
"Boney, Boney, don't be so naughty. Say 'Pretty Alayne.' Come, now."
Boney rocked himself on her shoulder in a paroxysm of rage. "Paji! Paji! Kuzabusth! Iflatoon! Iflatoon!" He glared into his mistress's face, their two hooked beaks almost touching, his scarlet and green plumage, her purple and pink finery, blazing in the slanting sun-rays.
"Please don't trouble," said Alayne, soothingly. "I think he is very beautiful, and he probably does not dislike me as much as he pretends."
"What's she say?" demanded the old lady, looking up at her sons. It was always difficult for her to understand a stranger, though her hearing was excellent, and Alayne's slow and somewhat precise enunciation was less clear to her than Nicholas's rumbling tones or Ernest's soft mumble.
"She says Boney is beautiful," said Nicholas, too indolent to repeat the entire sentence. Grandmother grinned, very well pleased. "Aye, he's beautiful. A handsome bird, but a bit of a devil. I brought him all the way from India seventy-three years ago. A game old bird, eh? Sailing-vessels then, my dear. I nearly died. And the ayah did die. They put her overboard. But I was too sick to care. My baby Augusta nearly died, poor brat, and my dear husband, Captain Philip Whiteoak, had his hands full. You'll see his portrait in the dining room. The handsomest officer in India. I could hold my own for looks, too. Would you think I'd ever been a beauty, eh?"
"I think you are very handsome now," replied Alayne, speaking with great distinctness. "Your nose is really—"
"What's she say?" cried Grandmother.
Ernest murmured: "She says your nose—"
"Ha, ha, my nose is still a beauty, eh? Yes, my dear, it's a good nose. A Court nose. None of your retroussé surprised-looking noses. Nothing on God's earth could surprise my nose. None of your pinched, sniffing, cold-in-the-head noses, either. A good reliable nose. A Court nose." She rubbed it triumphantly.
"You've a nice-looking nose, yourself," she continued. "You and Eden make a pretty pair. But he's no Court. Nor a Whiteoak. He looks like his poor pretty flibbertigibbet mother."
Alayne, shocked, looked indignantly toward Eden, but he wore only an expression of tolerant boredom, and was putting a cigarette between his faintly smiling lips.
Meg saw Alayne's look and expostulated: "Grandmamma!"
"Renny's the only Court among 'em," pursued Mrs. Whiteoak. "Wait till you see Renny. Where is he? I want Renny." She thumped the floor impatiently with her stick. "He'll be here very soon, Granny," said Meg. "He rode over to Mr. Probyn's to get a litter of pigs."
"Well, I call that very boorish of him. Boorish. Boorish. Did I say boorish? I mean Boarish. There's a pun, Ernest. You enjoy a pun. Boarish. Ha, ha!"
Ernest stroked his chin and smiled deprecatingly. Nicholas laughed jovially.
The old lady proceeded with a rakish air of enjoyment. "Renny prefers the grunting of a sow to sweet converse with a young bride—"
"Mamma," said Ernest, "shouldn't you like a peppermint?"
Her attention was instantly distracted. "Yes. I want a peppermint. Fetch me my bag."
Ernest brought a little old bead-embroidered bag. His mother began to fumble in it, and Boney, leaning from her shoulder, pecked at it and uttered cries of greed.
"A sweet!" he babbled. "A sweet—Boney wants a sweet—Pretty Alayne—Pretty Alayne—Boney wants a sweet!"
Grandmother cried in triumph: "He's said it! He's said it! I told you he could. Good Boney." She fumbled distractedly in the bag.
"May I help you?" Alayne asked, not without timidity.
The old lady pushed the bag into her hand. "Yes, quickly. I want a peppermint. A Scotch mint. Not a humbug."
"Boney wants a humbug!" screamed the parrot, rocking from side to side. "A humbug—Pretty Alayne—Kutni! Kutni! Shaitan ke khatla!"
Grandmother and the parrot leaned forward simultaneously for the sweet when it was found, she with protruding wrinkled lips, he with gaping beak. Alayne hesitated, fearing to offend either by favoring the other. While she hesitated Boney snatched it, and with a whir of wings flew to a far corner of the room. Grandmother, rigid as a statue, remained with protruding mouth till Alayne unearthed another sweet and popped it between her lips, then she sank back with a sigh of satisfaction, closed her eyes, and began to suck noisily.
Alayne longed to wipe her fingers, but she refrained. She looked at the faces about her. They were regarding the scene with the utmost imperturbability, except Eden, who still wore his look of faintly smiling boredom. A cloud of smoke about his head seemed to emphasize his aloofness.
Meg moved closer to him and whispered: "I think I shall take Alayne upstairs. I've had new chintzes put in your room, and fresh curtains, and I've taken the small rug from Renny's room and covered the bare spot on the carpet with it. I think you'll be pleased when you see it, Eden. She's a perfect dear."
Brother and sister looked at Alayne, who was standing with the two uncles at a window. They had opened the shutters and were showing her the view of the oak woods that sloped gradually down to the ravine. A flock of sheep were quietly grazing, tended by an old sheep-dog. Two late lambs were vying with each other in plaintive cries.
Meg came to Alayne and put an arm through hers. "I know you would like to go to your room," she said.
The two women ascended the stairway together. When they reached Eden's door, Meg impetuously seized Alayne's head between her plump hands and kissed her on the forehead. "I'm sure we can love each other," she explained, with childish enthusiasm, and Alayne returned the embrace, feeling that it would be easy to love this warm-blooded woman with a mouth like a Cupid's bow. When Eden came up, he found Alayne arranging her toilet articles on the dressing-table and humming a happy little song. He closed the door after him and came to her.
"I'm glad you can sing," he said. "I had told you that my family were an unusual set of people, but when I saw you among them I began to fear they'd be too much for you—that you'd get panicky, perhaps, and want to run back to New York."
"Is that why you were so quiet downstairs? You had an odd expression. I could not quite make it out. I thought you looked bored."
"I was. I wanted to have you to myself." He took her in his arms.
Eden was at this moment inexplicably two men. He was the lover, strongly possessive and protective. As opposed to this, he was the captive, restless, nervous, hating the thought of the responsibility of introducing his wife to his family, of translating one to the other in terms of restraint and affection.
She said, stroking his hair, which was like a shining metallic casque over his head: "Your sister—Meg—was delightful to me. She seems quite near already. And she tells me she had this room done over for me—new chintz and curtains. I am so glad it looks out over the park and the sheep. I can scarcely believe I shall have sheep to watch from my window."
"Let me show you my things," cried Eden, gaily, and he led her about the room, pointing out his various belongings from schooldays on, with boyish naïveté. He showed her the ink-stained desk at which he had written many of his poems.
"And to think," she exclaimed, "that I was far away in New York, and you were here, at that desk, writing the poems that were to bring us together!" She stroked the desk as though it were a living thing, and said, "I shall always want to keep it. When we have our own house, may we take it there, Eden?"
"Of course." But he wished she would not talk about having their own house yet. To change the subject he asked, "Did you find Gran rather overpowering? I'm afraid I scarcely prepared you for her. But she can't be explained. She's got to be seen to be credible. The uncles are nice old boys."
"Do you think"—she spoke hesitatingly, yet with determination—"that it is good for her to spoil her so? She absolutely dominated the room."
He smiled down at her quizzically. "My dear, she will be a hundred on her next birthday. She was spoiled before we ever saw her. My grandfather attended to that. Quite possibly she was spoiled before ever he saw her. She probably came into the world spoiled by generations of tyrannical hot-tempered Courts. You will just have to make the best of her."
"But the way she spoke about your mother. I cannot remember the word—flibberty-something. It hurt me, dearest."
Eden ran his hand through his hair in sudden exasperation. "You must not be so sensitive, Alayne. Words like that are a mere caress compared to what Gran can bring out on occasion."
"But about your dear mother," she persisted.
"Aren't women always like that about their daughters-in-law? Wait till you have one of your own and see. Wait till you are ninety-nine. You may be no more sweet-tempered than Gran by then."
Eden laughed gaily, but with an air of dismissing the subject, and drew her to the chintz-covered window-seat. "Let's sit down here a bit and enjoy Meggie's new decoration. I think she's done us thundering well, don't you?" Alayne leaned against him, breathing deeply of the tranquil air of Indian summer that came like a palpable essence through the open window. The earth, after all its passion of bearing, was relaxed in passive and slumbrous contentment. Its desires were fulfilled, its gushing fertility over. In profound languor it seemed to brood neither on the future nor on the past, but on its own infinite relation to the sun and to the stars. The sun had become personal. Red and rayless, he hung above the land as though listening to the slow beating of a great heart.
She became aware that Eden was observing someone in the grounds outside. She heard the sound of a horse's hoofs and, turning, saw a man leaning from his horse to fasten the gate behind him. Her beauty-loving eye was caught first by the satin shimmer of the beast's chestnut coat. Then she perceived that the rider was tall and thin, that he stooped in the saddle with an air of slouching accustomedness, and, as he passed beneath the window, that he had a red, sharp-featured face that looked rather foxlike beneath his peaked tweed cap.
The two clumber spaniels had rushed out to greet him and were bounding about the horse, their long silken ears flapping. Their barking irritated the horse, and, after a nip or two at them, he broke into a canter and disappeared with his rider behind a row of Scotch firs that hid the stables from the house.
"Renny," murmured Eden, "back from his porcine expedition."
"Yes, I thought it must be Renny, though he is not like what I expected him to be. Why did you not call to him?"
"He's rather a shy fellow. I thought it might embarrass both of you to exchange your first greetings from such different altitudes." Alayne, listening to the muffled sound of hoofs, remarked: "He gives the impression of a strong personality."
"He has. And he's as wiry and strong as the devil. I've never known him to be ill for a day. He'll probably live to be as old as Gran."
"Gran—Gran," thought Alayne. Every conversation in this family seemed to be punctuated by remarks about that dreadful old woman.
"And he owns all this," she commented. "It does not seem quite fair to all you others."
"It was left that way. He has to educate and provide for the younger family. The uncles had their share years ago. And of course Gran simply hoards hers. No one knows who will get it."
"Gran" again.
A gentle breeze played with a tendril of hair on her forehead. Eden brushed his lips against it. "Darling," he murmured, "do you think you can be happy here for a while?"
"Eden! I am gloriously happy."
"We shall write such wonderful things—together."
They heard steps on the graveled path that led to the back of the house. Alayne, opening her eyes, heavy with a momentary sweet languor, saw Renny enter the kitchen, his dogs at his heels. A moment later a tap sounded on the door.
"Please," said Wake's voice, "will you come down to dinner?"
He could not restrain his curiosity about the bride and groom. It seemed very strange to find this young lady in Eden's room, but it was disappointing that there were no confetti and orange blossoms about.
Alayne put her arm around his shoulders as they descended the stairs, feeling more support from his little body in the ordeal of meeting the rest of the family than the presence of Eden afforded her. There were still Renny and the wife of young Piers.
Their feet made no sound on the thick carpet of the stairs. The noontide light falling through the colored glass window gave the hall an almost church-like solemnity, and the appearance at the far end of old Mrs. Whiteoak emerging from her room, supported on either side by her sons, added a final processional touch. Through the open door of the dining room Alayne could see the figures of Renny, Piers, and a young girl advancing toward the table. Meg already stood at one end of it, surveying its great damask expanse as some high priestess might survey the sacrificial altar. On a huge platter already lay two rotund roasted fowls. Rags stood behind a drawn-back chair, awaiting Mrs. Whiteoak. As the old lady saw Alayne and her escorts approaching the door of the dining room, she made an obviously heroic effort to reach it first, shuffling her feet excitedly, and snuffing the good smell of the roast with the excitement of an old war-horse smelling blood.
"Steady, Mamma, steady," begged Ernest, steering her past a heavily carved hall chair.
"I want my dinner," she retorted, breathing heavily. "Chicken. I smell chicken. And cauliflower. I must have the pope's nose, and plenty of bread sauce."
Not until she was seated was Alayne introduced to Renny and Pheasant. He bowed gravely, and murmured some only half-intelligible greeting. She might have heard it more clearly had her mind been less occupied with the scrutiny of him at sudden close quarters. She was observing his narrow, weather-beaten face, the skin like red-brown leather merging in color into the rust-red of his hair, his short thick eyelashes, his abstracted, yet fiery eyes. She observed too his handsome, hard-looking nose, which was far too much like his grandmother's.
Pheasant she saw as a flower-like young girl, a fragile Narcissus poeticus in this robust, highly colored garden of Jalna.
Alayne was seated at Renny Whiteoak's left, and at her left Eden, and next him Pheasant and Piers. Wakefield had been moved to the other side of the table, between his sister and Uncle Ernest. Alayne had only glimpses of him around the centrepiece of crimson and bronze dahlias, flowers that in their rigid and uncompromising beauty were well fitted to withstand the overpowering presence of the Whiteoaks. Whenever Alayne's eyes met the little boy's, he smiled. Whenever her eyes met Meg's, Meg's lips curved in their own peculiar smile. But when her eyes met those of Mrs. Whiteoak, the old lady showed every tooth in a kind of ferocious friendliness, immediately returning to her dinner with renewed zeal, as though to make up for lost time.
The master of Jalna set about the business of carving with the speed and precision of one handing out rations to an army. But there was nothing haphazard about his method of apportioning the fowl. With carving-knife poised, he shot a quick look at the particular member of the family he was about to serve, then, seeming to know either what they preferred or what was best for them, he slashed it off and handed the plate to Rags, who glided with it to Meg, who served the vegetables.
To one accustomed to a light luncheon, the sight of so much food at this hour was rather disconcerting. Alayne, looking at these enormous dinner plates mounded with chicken, bread sauce, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, and green peas, thought of little salad lunches in New York with mild regret. They seemed very far away. Even the table silver was enormous. The great knife and fork felt like implements in her hands. The salt cellars and pepper pots seemed weighted by memories of all the bygone meals they had savored. The long-necked vinegar bottle reared its head like a tawny giraffe in the massive jungle of the table.
Renny was saying, in his vibrant voice that was without the music of Eden's, "I'm sorry I could not go to your wedding. I could not get away at that time."
"Yes," chimed in Meg, "Renny and I wanted so very much to go, but we could not arrange it. Finch had a touch of tonsilitis just then, and Wakefield's heart was not behaving very well, and of course there is Grandmamma."
Mrs. Whiteoak broke in: "I wanted to go, but I'm too old to travel. I did all my traveling in my youth. I've been all over the world. But I sent my love. Did you get my love? I sent my love in Meggie's letter. Did you get it, eh?"
"Yes, indeed," said Alayne. "We were so very glad to get your message."
"You'd better be. I don't send my love to every one, helter-skelter." She nodded her cap so vigorously that three green peas bounced from her fork and rolled across the table. Wakefield was convulsed with laughter. He said, "Bang!" as each pea fell, and shot one of his own after them. Renny looked down the table sharply at him, and he subsided.
Grandmother peered at her fork, shrewdly missing the peas.
"My peas are gone," she said. "I want more peas; more cauliflower and potatoes, too."
She was helped to more vegetables, and at once began to mould them with her fork into a solid mass.
"Mamma," objected Ernest mildly, "must you do that?" Sasha, who was perched on his shoulder, observing that his attention was directed away from his poised fork, stretched out one furry paw and drew it toward her own whiskered lips. Ernest rescued the morsel of chicken just in time. "Naughty, naughty," he said.
As though there had been no interruption, Meg continued:—
"It must have been such a pretty wedding. Eden wrote us all about it."
By this time Renny had attacked the second fowl with his carvers. Alayne had made no appreciable inroads on her dinner, but all the Whiteoaks were ready for more.
"Renny, did you get the pigs?" asked Piers, breaking in on conversation about the wedding with, Alayne thought, ostentatious brusqueness.
"Yes. You never saw a grander litter. Got the nine and the old sow for a hundred dollars. I offered ninety; Probyn wanted a hundred and ten. I met him half-way." The master of Jalna began to talk of the price of pigs; and with gusto. Every one talked of the price of pigs; and every one agreed that Renny had paid too much.
Only the disheveled carcase of the second fowl remained on the platter. Then it was removed, and a steaming blackberry pudding and a large plum tart made their appearance.
"You are eating almost nothing, dear Alayne," said Meg. "I do hope you will like the pudding."
Renny was looking at Alayne steadily from under his thick lashes, the immense pudding spoon expectantly poised.
"Thank you," she answered. "But I really could not. I will take a little of the pie."
"Please don't urge her, Meggie," said Eden. "She is used to luncheon at noon."
"Oh, but the pudding," sighed Meg. "It's such a favorite of ours."
"I like it," said the grandmother with a savage grin; "please give me some."
She got her pudding and Alayne her tart, but when Meg's turn arrived, she breathed: "No, thank you, Renny. Nothing for me." And Renny, knowing of the trays carried to her room, made no remark, but Eden explained in an undertone. "Meggie eats nothing—at least almost nothing at the table. You'll soon get used to that."
Meggie was pouring tea from a heavily chased silver pot. Even little Wake had some; but how Alayne longed for a cup of coffee, for the plum tart, though good, was very rich. It seemed to cry out for coffee.
Would she ever get used to them, Alayne wondered. Would they ever seem near to her—like relatives? As they rose from the table and moved in different directions, she felt a little oppressed, she did not quite know whether by the weight of the dinner or by the family, which was so unexpectedly foreign to her.
Old Mrs. Whiteoak pushed her son Ernest from her, and, extending a heavily ringed hand to Alayne, commanded:—
"You give me your arm, my dear, on this side. You may as well get into the ways of the family at once."
Alayne complied with a feeling of misgiving. She doubted whether she could efficiently take the place of Ernest. The old woman clutched her arm vigorously, dragging with what seemed unnecessary and almost intolerable weight. The two, with Nicholas towering above them, shuffled their way to Mrs. Whiteoak's bedroom and established her there before the fire by painful degrees. Alayne, flushed with the exertion, straightened her back and stared with surprise at the unique magnificence of the painted leather bedstead, the inlaid dresser and tables, the Indian rugs, and flamboyant hangings.
Mrs. Whiteoak pulled at her skirt. "Sit down, my girl, sit down on this footstool. Ha—I'm out o' breath. Winded—" She panted alarmingly.
"Too much dinner, Mamma," said Nicholas, striking a match on the mantelpiece and lighting a cigarette. "If you will over-eat, you will wheeze."
"You're a fine one to talk," retorted his mother, suddenly getting her breath. "Look at your own leg, and the way you eat and swill down spirits."
Boney, hearing the voice of his mistress raised in anger, roused himself from his after-dinner doze on the foot of the bed, and screamed: "Shaitan! Shaitan ka bata! Shaitan ka butcha? Kunjus!"
Mrs. Whiteoak leaned over Alayne, where she now sat on the footstool, and stroked her neck and shoulders with a hand not so much caressing as appraising. She raised her heavy red eyebrows to the lace edging of her cap and commented with an arch grin:—
"A bonny body. Well covered, but not too plump. Slender, but not skinny. Meg's too plump. Pheasant's skinny. You're just right for a bride. Eh, my dear, but if I was a young man I'd like to sleep with you."
Alayne, painfully scarlet, turned her face away from Mrs. Whiteoak toward the blaze of the fire. Nicholas was comfortingly expressionless.
"Another thing," chuckled Mrs. Whiteoak, "I'm glad you've lots of brass. I am indeed."
"Easy now," cried Boney. "Easy does it!"
At that moment Grandmother fell into one of her sudden naps. Nicholas smiled down tolerantly at his sleeping parent.
"You mustn't mind what she says. Remember, she's ninety-nine, and she's never had her spirit broken by life—or by the approach of death. You're not offended, are you?"
"N-no. But she says I am—brazen. Why, it almost makes me laugh. I've always been considered rather retiring—even diffident."
Nicholas made subterranean sounds of mirth that had in them a measure of relief, but he offered no explanation. Instead, he took her hand and drew her to her feet.
"Come," he said, "and I'll show you my room. I expect you to visit me often there, and tell me all about New York, and I'll tell you about London in the old days. I'm a regular fossil now, but if you'll believe me, I was a gay fellow once."
He led the way to his room, heaving himself up the stairs by the hand railing. He installed her by the window, where she could enjoy the splendor of the autumn woods and where the light fell over her, bringing out the chestnut tints in her hair and the pearl-like pallor of her skin. It was so long since he had met a young woman of beauty and intelligence that the contact exhilarated him, made the blood quicken in his veins. Before he realized it, he was telling her incidents of his life of which he had not spoken for years. He even unearthed a photograph of his wife in a long-trained evening-gown, and showed it to her. His face, massive and heavily lined, looked, as he recalled those bygone days, like a rock from which the sea has long receded, but which bears on its seamed and battered surface irrevocable evidence of the fury of past storms.
He presented her, as a wedding present, with a silver bowl in which he had been accustomed to keep his pipes, first brightening it up with a silk handkerchief.
"You are to keep roses in it now, my dear," he said, and quite casually he put his fingers under her chin, raised her face, and kissed her. Alayne was touched by the gift, a little puzzled by a certain smiling masterfulness in the caress.
A moment later Ernest Whiteoak appeared at the door. Alayne must now inspect his retreat. No, Nicholas was not wanted, just Alayne.
"He intends to bore you with his melancholy annotating of Shakespeare. I warn you," exclaimed Nicholas.
"Nonsense," said Ernest. "I just don't want to feel utterly shelved. Don't be a beast, Nick. Alayne is as much interested in me as she is in you; aren't you, Alayne?"
"She's not interested in you at all," retorted Nicholas, "but she's enthralled by my sweet discourse; aren't you, Alayne?"
They seemed to take pleasure in the mere pronouncing of her name; using it on every occasion.
To Ernest's room she was led then, and because of his brother's gibe he at first would not speak of his hobby, contenting himself with showing her his water-colors, the climbing rose whose yellow flowers still spilled their fragrance across his window-sill, and the complaisant feline tricks of Sasha. But when Alayne showed an unmistakable interest in the annotation of Shakespeare and an unexpected knowledge of the text, his enthusiasm overflowed like Niagara in springtime. Two hours flew by, in which they established the intimacy of congenial tastes. Ernest's thin cheeks were flushed; his blue eyes had become quite large and bright. He drummed the fingers of one hand incessantly on the table.
So Meg found them when she came to carry Alayne away for an inspection of the house and garden. Eden was off somewhere with Renny, Meg explained, and Alayne had a sudden feeling of anger toward this brother who so arrogantly swept Eden from her side, and who was so casually polite to her himself.
It was warm enough to have tea on the lawn, Meg announced, and when she and Alayne returned from their tour of the mass of overgrown lilacs, syringas, and guelder-rose trees that was called "the shrubbery," and the sleepy kitchen garden where the rows of cabbages and celery and rank bed of parsley were flanked by scarlet sage and heavy-headed dahlias, they found that Rags had arranged the tea things on the wicker table. Some of the family were already disposed about it in deck chairs or on the grass, according to their years.
Alayne's eyes missed no detail of the scene before her: the emerald-green lawn lying in rich shadow, while the upper portions of the surrounding trees were bathed in lambent sunshine which so intensified their varying autumn hues that they had the unreal splendor of colors seen under water. Near the tea-table Grandmother dozed in her purple velvet tea-gown. Nicholas was stretched, half recumbent, playing idly with the ears of Nip, whose pointed muzzle was twitching expectantly toward the plates of cakes; Ernest stood courteously by his chair; on the grass sprawled bare-kneed Wake with a pair of rabbits, and bony long-limbed Finch, whom she now saw for the first time. Eden, Piers, and Renny did not appear, but before the second pot of tea was emptied young Pheasant slipped into the scene, carrying a branch of scarlet maple leaves, which she laid across the knees of Nicholas.
A mood of gentle hilarity possessed them all. As she ate cucumber sandwiches and cheese-cakes, Alayne felt more in harmony with the life that was to be hers among this family. She was relieved by the absence of the three who did not join the party. With Eden away, she could more readily submerge herself in the family, explore the backwater of their relations with each other. In the case of Piers, she felt only relief from a presence that was at least covertly hostile. As for Renny, she could not make him out. She would need time for that. Just now his dominating personality, combined with his air of abstraction, puzzled and rather irritated her.
Eden had told her that Renny did not like his poetry, that he did not like any poetry. She thought of him as counting endless processions of foals, calves, lambs, and young pigs, always with an eye on the market. She would have been surprised, could she have followed him to his bedroom that night, to find how gentle he was toward little Wake, who was tossing about, unable to sleep after the excitement of the day. Renny rubbed his legs and patted his back as a mother might have done. In fact, in his love for his little brother he combined the devotion of both father and mother. Meg was all grown-up sister.
Wake, drowsy at last, curled up against Renny's chest and murmured: "I believe I could go to sleep more quickly if we'd pretend we were somebody else, Renny please."
"Do you? All right. Who shall we be? Living people or people out of the books? You say."
Wake thought a minute, getting sleepier with each tick of Renny's watch beneath the pillow; then he breathed: "I think we'll be Eden and Alayne."
Renny stifled a laugh. "All right. Which am I?"
Wake considered again, deliciously drowsy, sniffing at the nice odor of tobacco, Windsor soap, and warm flesh that emanated from Renny.
"I think you'd better be Alayne," he whispered.
Renny, too, considered this transfiguration. It seemed difficult, but he said resignedly: "Very well. Fire away." There was silence for a space; then Wakefield whispered, twisting a button of Renny's pyjamas: "You go first, Renny. Say something."
Renny spoke sweetly: "Do you love me, Eden?"
Wake chuckled, then answered, seriously: "Oh, heaps. I'll buy you anything you want. What would you like?"
"I'd like a limousine, and an electric toaster, and—a feather boa."
"I'll get them all first thing in the morning. Is there anything else you'd like, my girl?"
"M—yes. I'd like to go to sleep."
"Now, see here, you can't," objected the pseudo-groom. "Ladies don't pop straight off to sleep like that."
But apparently this lady did. The only response that Wakefield could elicit was a gentle but persistent snore.
For a moment Wake was deeply hurt, but the steady rise and fall of Renny's chest was soothing. He snuggled closer to him, and soon he too was fast asleep.